The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) banned the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian territories from entering the occupied lands to attend a meeting staged by human rights organizations.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry in a statement Tuesday denounced the ban, dubbing it a manifestation of Israel’s ongoing violations of Palestinians’ legitimate rights and an attempt to conceal the crimes perpetrated in the Occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem.

A consortium of Palestinian human rights organizations were set to brief the UN Special Rapporteur, during a three-day meeting, on Israeli infringements of Palestinians’ rights.

The Ministry of Home Affairs stressed the vital role played by the UN Special Rapporteur and other international officials in disclosing Israeli violations of Palestinians’ human rights and setting the stage for a serious prosecution of the crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Ministry said it had extended an open invitation to all UN Special Rapporteurs to attend the meeting and keep tabs on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Defense for Children International – Palestine Branch (DCIP), issued a statement expressing deep concern regarding the decision of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to exclude the Israeli army from the UN annual list of groups that commit serious violations against children.

DCI said that the UN leader annually submits to the UN Security Council a report on children and armed conflicts.

The report includes what is referred to as “the list of shame” documenting violations by armed forces and groups. The list included serious Israeli violations that led to killing and maiming children in the Gaza Strip, in addition to Israel’s bombardment of thousands of civilian structures.

“By removing Israel’s armed forces from the ‘list of shame’, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has provided tacit approval for Israeli forces to continue carrying out grave violations against children with impunity,” Khaled Quzmar, DCIP’s general director. “It is deplorable that a proven and strong evidence-based accountability tool to protect children during armed conflicts has been significantly undermined in an effort to shield Israel from accountability.”

The UN Secretary General annual report, released Monday, said that 577 Palestinian children were killed in 2014, the third highest after Afghanistan, where 710 children were killed, and Iraq 967 children, while the number of children killed in Syria is 368.

DCI said the Israeli forces damaged or destroyed 543 schools in 2014, which is the highest record of all other conflicts, in 2014.

Last week, DCI and Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Ban Ki-Moon urging him to resist all political pressures aiming at excluding the Israeli military from the list of shame, explaining that “they led evidence-based advocacy effort to ensure including Israel in the list for killing and maiming thousands of children, and bombarding schools, including UNRWA-run school, in the Gaza Strip.

They called on the UN leader to “apply consistent criteria when determining which parties to list, including all armed forces and non-state armed groups where there is credible evidence of a pattern of violations.”

Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) is deeply troubled by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s decision not to include Israel’s armed forces in his annual list of groups that commit grave violations of children’s rights.Each year, the UN Secretary-General submits a report on children and armed conflict to the UN Security Council that includes a “list of shame” of armed forces and groups. Israel’s armed forces were ﻿reportedlyrecommended by Ms. Leila Zerrougui, UNSpecial Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG-CAAC), for inclusion in the list for killing and maiming children as well as carrying out attacks against schools. Recently, the United States reportedly pressuredBan Ki-moon, who holds sole discretion in the matter, against taking this action. This is believed to be the first time the Secretary-General has not accepted the recommendation of the SRSG-CAAC.“By removing Israel’s armed forces from the children’s ‘list of shame’, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has provided tacit approval for Israeli forces to continue carrying out grave violations against children with impunity,” said Khaled Quzmar, DCIP’s general director. “It is deplorable that a proven and strong evidence-based accountability tool to protect children during armed conflict has been significantly undermined in an effort to shield Israel from accountability.” The Secretary-General's annual report on children and armed conflict, released today, states that 557 Palestinian children were killed in 2014, the third highest behind Afghanistan (710) and Iraq (679) and significantly more than in Syria (368). At least 543 schools were damaged or destroyed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which was the highest recorded number of all situations in 2014, according to the report.Last week, DCIP called on Ban Ki-moon to resist political pressure against holding Israel accountable, and Human Rights Watch sent him a letter urging him to “apply consistent criteria when determining which parties to list, including all armed forces and non-state armed groups where there is credible evidence of a pattern of violations.” The draft list also included Palestinian armed groups, but the Secretary-General also removed them from the final version. Over the past 10 months, DCIP has led evidence-based advocacy efforts urging Israel's inclusion in Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's annual "list of shame" for killing and maiming children and carrying out attacks on schools in Gaza. The decision to remove Israel’s armed forces from the draft list comes despite a report released in late April by a UN Board of Inquiry established by the Secretary-General that foundIsrael responsible for strikes on UN schools and shelters in Gaza that killed at least 44 Palestinians, including children.During Israel’s most recent military offensive, known as “Operation Protective Edge”, and as in previous offensives, Israeli armed forces carried out a significant number of direct attacks on civilian homes and other civilian buildings, including schools, ﻿killing﻿over 500 Palestinian children and injuring another 3,374 children in attacks throughout Gaza in July and August 2014.Since 2007, a monitoring group, led by the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, has reported on grave violations against children in Israel and the OPT. The group includes international, Israeli, and Palestinian nongovernmental organizations and UN agencies. The group’s bulletin on Israel’s military offensive in Gaza last summer[PDF] includes extensive and detailed evidence of the killing and maiming of Palestinian children as well as attacks against their schools.Detailed and comprehensive data and information on grave violations against children in the OPT has been included in each of the Secretary-General’s annual reports on children and armed conflict since 2006.UN Security Council Resolution 1612, adopted in 2005, formally established a UN-led, evidence-based monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) on grave violations against children during armed conflict. The six grave violations against children, as defined by the Security Council, include killing and maiming, child recruitment, sexual violence, attacks on schools or hospitals, denial of humanitarian access for children, and abduction.MRM working groups systematically gather information and submit documentation on the major child rights violations for inclusion in the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict. Credible evidence of armed forces or groups committing these atrocities against children obligates the Secretary-General to list them in the annex of his annual report.The significance of the MRM is that it provides a process for accountability when armed forces or armed groups violate universal and fundamental principles. Over the past decade, the global MRM has significantly increased protections for children during armed conflict. However, it has failed to foster the compliance of Israeli forces with international child protection standards.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, stated that the files of Israel’s illegal settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, and the repeated Israeli aggression on the besieged coastal Gaza Strip, will be submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on June 25.

Al-Maliki said that all preparations for submitting the two important have been conducted by Palestinian and international experts.

He stated that the Israeli leadership is not interested in any real progress in political talks, in addition to its ongoing construction and expansion of its illegal colonies.

The official also denied reports claiming that Foreign Ministers from Germany, Canada and New Zealand have delivered messages from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “expressing willingness to meet President Mahmoud Abbas.”

He added that the Palestinian leadership is not seeking “media talks," false statements and lies that aim at creating fake developments in the political situation."

In addition, Al-Maliki rejected the idea of a small-scale “international peace conference,” adding that Israel is facing more international isolation, and that such a conference would only help it overcome this isolation without any real progress in the political situation.

"Ban Ki-moon’s decision not to include Israel on the list of violators of children’s rights twists the knife in the heart of every Palestinian parent, making it very clear that in the eyes of the United Nations Palestinian children’s lives don’t count," Hemaya Center for Human rights said in a press release on Monday.

It said, "When a military with the most sophisticated and accurate weaponry on the planet can kill more than 500 children in cold blood with complete impunity, as Israel’s absence from the list shows, it reveals more than just the complete disregard for Palestinian lives that has become so commonplace in the halls of power. It also makes it abundantly clear that the UN, the single most important international organisation charged with protecting the lives of the most vulnerable, is failing spectacularly."

The release pointed out that Children are the lifeblood of the future. How can any world citizen look at the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Palestinian child death toll from the 2014 Israeli aggression, and this decision, and not be appalled?

"At best it reflects the paucity of responsible leadership evident in the UN under Ban Ki-moon’s secretaryship, which has seen public faith in the international organisation reach an all-time low."

The center said, "At worst it underlines the gross politicisation of an organisation purporting to uphold the rights of ALL humans – and failing.The only way Ban Ki-moon’s decision – if not his entire leadership in relation to the Palestinian issue – can be called a success is if the intention is to ‘grow’ a generation of increasingly angry cynics with no respect for the abject hypocrisy emanating from Geneva and New York."

Hemaya expressed its utmost disappointment in the attitude to Palestinian children that the decision represents, and called on human rights bodies and concerned citizens everywhere to roundly reject it by supporting and valuing those Palestinian children who survived, and who continue to suffer under illegal occupation, repression and siege.

While UN envoy debating on whether to include IDF and Hamas on list of violators of children's rights, heads of UN agencies say it is 'not clear' whether Israel should be included.UN agencies in Israel and the Palestinian territories reported an alarming number of child victims in last year's war in the Gaza Strip but were split on whether Israel should be put on a list of violators of children's rights, a UN document shows.Their 22-page confidential country report, obtained by Reuters on Friday, was prepared by United Nations agencies on the ground for submission to the UN special envoy for children and armed conflict as she readied a draft of the annual list. The special envoy, Leila Zerrougui of Algeria, included the IDF and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the draft she sent to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has final say on the list, UN sources have said. According to UN numbers, more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the conflict, while 67 IDF soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed. The country report said some 540 children were reportedly killed, 371 of them 12 years old or younger. The UN agencies' country report, which was sent to Zerrougui to help her prepare her decision on whether to include Israel and Palestinian armed groups in her draft list to be passed on to Ban, has used strong language on alleged violations of children's rights in the Gaza war.

It specified what it said were unlawful deaths and injuries of Palestinian children caused by Israeli forces, detention of Palestinian children and attacks on schools. It said more information was needed on the question of recruitment of children by Palestinian armed groups. However, in a section that would appear to undermine the case for listing Israel, the country report said the heads of the UN agencies on the ground had failed to reach a consensus on whether to list Israel. It said it was "not clear how the listing criteria should be applied and whether they had been satisfied." Diplomats say the final version of the list, which names grave violators of children's rights in armed conflicts, could reach UN member states as early as the beginning of next week. Whether to include the Jewish state is a politically charged issue for Israel and the United States. Some US lawmakers have spoken out on the issue and Republican presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz wrote to Ban about it this week. UN diplomatic sources told Reuters that Israel has lobbied hard against its inclusion and that Ban was leaning against including Israel.

Diplomats said US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power had urged Ban not to list Israel. Ban has also received information from human rights groups, including New York-based Human Rights Watch, which issued a statement this week urging the UN not to give in pressure to keep Israel off the list. Israel's UN mission did not have an immediate response to the country report.

A UN inquiry published in April said Israeli soldiers had fired on seven UN schools during the Gaza war, killing 44 Palestinians who were sheltered at some of the sites, while Palestinian fighters hid weapons and launched attacks from several empty UN schools.

While Zerrougui's report was being prepared, diplomatic sources told Reuters UN agency chiefs had felt pressured by Israel not to support including the IDF. Israel has said it should not be listed but denied pressuring anyone.

In addition to HRW, the UN's special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui [pictured], recommended last month that Israel should be on the list

Human Rights Watch urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday to add Israel to its annual "List of Shame" of children's rights violators. Israel, said the rights organisation, should be on the list for its killing of more than 500 Palestinian children during its offensive against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip last year.

The US-based watchdog asked Ban to resist pressure from Israel and America to keep the Israeli army off the list, which will be published next week. According to HRW's UN & Crisis Advocacy director, Philippe Bolopion, "The Secretary-General can strengthen child protection in war by compiling his list based on facts, not political pressure." The Israeli offensive last year resulted in the killing of 539 Palestinian children; almost three thousand others were wounded. HRW also asked for the inclusion of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, on the list, as well as other armed groups from Pakistan, Thailand and India. It pointed out that these groups launched attacks on schools or recruited child soldiers. The UN's special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, recommended last month that Israel should be on the list. At the moment it includes 51 armed groups, including Boko Haram and ISIS, along with 8 national armies, including Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.

The Israeli occupation army killed more than 980 Palestinian children under age 18 and injured hundreds more during its three wars on the besieged Gaza Strip.

During its indiscriminate military attacks on Gaza, Israel, despite its claims on respecting international law, violated all international standards that protect children's rights, including what are stipulated by the 1989 international convention on the rights of the Child, the 1948 universal declaration of human rights and the 1949 Geneva convention.

In a statement released by Defense for Children International-Palestine on the international day of innocent children victims of aggression that is observed on the fourth of June, the organization said that 2014 was the deadliest and most difficult on Gaza children, where more than 530 of them were killed in direct Israeli attacks.

Head of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Raji Sourani stressed Wednesday that "the international community, especially human rights organizations, have made efforts at the international level with the United Nations bodies and International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure prosecuting Israeli war criminals."

Sourani's statements came during a ceremony organized to launch the PCHR 2014 annual report. This report is the 18th of its kind, as PCHR has always published annual reports displaying the human rights conditions since 1997.

He drew attention that the report covered violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in the oPt, including Jerusalem, in 2014. He added that the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip was a prominent feature of the report, which addressed also violations relevant to settlement activities and expansion, the serious impact of the Israeli-imposed closure on the Gaza Strip and the annexation wall and its devastating impact on the Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

He also indicated that the report further addressed human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Lawyer Raji Sourani highlighted the serious human rights violations committed by Israeli forces against the Palestinian people, particularly during the Israeli offensive and its material and moral consequences under which civilians have lived, especially in view of the delayed reconstruction process of Gaza.

Sourani attributed the ongoing commission of crimes by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians to the impunity enjoyed by Israel, created by the international community by keeping silent, failing to put an end to Israeli crimes and lack of serious steps to prosecute Israeli war criminals. He pointed that this current state of impunity will encourage Israel to commit more crimes.

Moreover, Sourani talked about efforts by human rights organizations, especially in preparing for the delivery of Palestinian victims' files and other Israeli crimes' files, especially those related to settlement activities, to the ICC to prosecute Israeli war criminals.

At the end of the ceremony, discussion was allowed, and the attendants praised PCHR's efforts to help civilians obtain all their rights.

The ceremony of launching the report was attended by a large number of public figures, including decision makers, politicians and representatives of human rights, community-based and youth organizations.

-------It should be noted that hard and soft copies of the report [PDF] attached by a summary (in Arabic) [PDF] were distributed to the attendees. Furthermore, the report is in the translation process after which it will be published in English soon at the international level.

Khalil Tafakji, a Palestinian expert in Maps and the head of the " and Geographic Information Systems Department" of the Arab Studies Center in Jerusalem, said the Palestinian Authority intends to submit 160 files to the International Criminal Court (ICC), documenting Israel’s illegal settlement activities.

Tafakji said the files will be submitted to the ICC during this month, June 2015; his statements came during an interview with the al-Ghad Jordanian paper, in which he said that the documents would include attached maps, and aerial photographs.

The pictures, although taken in 1997, document the structures of 145 illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and 15 in occupied Jerusalem, while the maps and data regarding those settlements is current.

Tafakji stated that the settlements house more than 500.000 Israeli settlers, including around 200.000 in occupied Jerusalem, living in colonies built on Palestinian lands that would be part of the anticipated Palestinian State.

He added that technical experts are working alongside International Law specialists, in order to gather all needed information, maps, photos and data regarding Israel’s ongoing illegal settlement construction and expansion activities.

“Every settlement has its own file, structural maps, documentation, photos, and all related military orders issued by Israel,” Tafakji said, “The info also includes the year of establishment of each settlement, in addition to lands confiscated for their construction, lands confiscated for expansion, and the lands Israel intends to confiscate for further expansion activities.”

He also said that aerial photographs provided a clear idea of sizes of the settlements when they were constructed, the current areas they occupy and the number of settlers living there.

The official stated that Israel uses different claims and “justifications” to illegally confiscate Palestinian lands, including declaring them as “natural reserves,” “green areas,” or the lands classified either as “State Property," or as “Closed Military Zones.”

The files and documentations were prepared and collected by the Higher National Committee, which was recently formed, under direct orders from President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Committee includes eleven International Law experts from various countries, who are reportedly preparing to submit the files of Israeli settlements, and its wars on Gaza, to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Wasel Abu Yousef, said the committee has finalized the two files, and is currently coordinating the moves for submitting it through its team of lawyers within two weeks.

Abu Yousef added that the Palestinians strongly believe heading to the ICC to sue Israel for its crimes, and repeated aggressions on Gaza, is a justified cause aiming at holding Israel accountable for its ongoing, and escalating, violations of International Law and all related United Nations and Security Council resolutions.

Palestinian Authority lawyer Hiba Masalha reported that young Palestinian detainees are being "terrified, threatened, and blackmailed" by Israeli authorities while detained. There are currently 68 Palestinian teenagers being held in Section 3 of Megeddo prison, where Masalha visited recently, and most of the detainees were arrested from an orphanage in Tulkarem in the Northern West Bank.

17-year-old Mahir Hussein, from Qalqiliya in the northern West Bank, told Masalha that Israeli soldiers had fired gunshots into the air to threaten him and two other teenagers when they were detained. The soldiers threatened to kill him and then beat him violently.

Hussein was left bleeding with his hands and feet cuffed for 6 hours before being moved to a hospital in an Israeli military base where he got 24 stitches to seal the gaping wound in his head.

He was transferred to al-Jalama interrogation center where he was beaten and mostly confined to a wooden chair with his hands and feet cuffed for a period of 20 days.

Masalha also met with two other detainees, Wasim Taj and Ibrahim Salmi, both age 17, who reported similar experiences of "brutal" interrogation.

Just last week, Issa Qarage, head of the prisoners' committee, stated that Israeli interrogators used "oppressive and brutal" methods to terrorize Palestinian detainees.

There have been numerous reports of "widespread and systematic" abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, including reports by the United Nations and Defense for Children. The Defense for Children report stated that 93 percent of children detained by Israeli forces were denied access to legal counsel, and many endured prolonged periods of solitary confinement for interrogation purposes, which is considered torture under international law.